The student should have a good understanding of the art he wishes to practice. As martial arts nowadays have deviated drastically from their original philosophy and practice, it is helpful to bear in mind the art in its ideal conditions and the art in its actual conditions available to you. For example, you have read about Shaolin Kungfu as effective means for combat efficiency and spiritual cultivation. This is the ideal. In practice, you may find the school that teaches Shaolin Kungfu available to you may not use what it teaches for combat and there may be nothing about spiritual cultivation.

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Whether an exercise is elementary or advanced often depends on how it is performed rather than what the exercise is. In other words, it is skills rather than techniques that determine accomplishment levels. This concept is difficult for most people to understand. Most people today grade whether an exercise is elementary or advanced according to techniques, and they measure their progress by the number of techniques they have learnt.

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A legitimate question is what constitutes genune chi kung and genuine kungfu. By definition, chi kung is an art of energy. Hence, any art or practice that does not involve energy, or chi, is not genuine chi kung. Kungfu is a martial art. Hence, any art or practice that cannot be used for fighting is not genuine kungfu.

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We train our Shaolin Kungfu for health, combat efficiency and spiritual cultivation, which we believe were the aims of the Shaolin Kungfu originally practiced in the Shaolin Temple. Many practitioners of other versions train for demonstrations, and many others train only for health, some with an explicit declaration that their “kungfu” is not for fighting. Few practitioners of other versions train internal force or train for spiritual cultivation, although many of them talk about internal force and spirituality in theory. Many of them advocate external methods of training like hitting sandbags and weight lifting, which internal training discourages, and many of them are visibly stressful and aggressive, which indicates a lack of spiritual cultivation.

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In chi kung philosophy, the cause of your problems is disharmonious energy flow. It is that simple. It is so simple that some people may think it is a joke, and others may not believe it. This in turn is due to their not understanding what actually is meant by "disharmonious energy flow". In simple English it means that the energy that flows to your systems, organs, tissues, muscles or cells is not flowing smoothly, with the result that some of them are not performing their functions normally due to a lack of energy to do so. For example, the energy that is supposed to flow to your lungs to enable your lungs to perform their normal functions, is blocked. As a result, in your case, your lungs have become weak, have suffered scars and collapsed a numerous times.

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It has become a common practice amongst kungfu practitioners, including some masters, to say that kungfu becomes quite ineffective when practitioners put on gloves. This is an excuse for their inability to use kungfu for sparring or fighting. The sad fact is that most kungfu practitioners today cannot use their kungfu for combat, though some of them may be formidable fighters using borrowed techniques from other martial arts.

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My interpretation is that Cosmic Reality, called the Tao, is undifferentiated, i.e. it is a continuous spread of universal energy or consciousness. But ordinarily we do not see Cosmic Reality as undifferentiated, we see a minute part of it as our phonemeanl world. For example, we may see a moutain and animals and trees on the mountain. We see the animals, trees, the mountain and we ourselves as separate entitites. These animals, trees, the mountain, ourselves and all other countless entities in the world are phenomena, meaning appearances. They are not absolutely real. Other beings, like bacteria or gods, will see them differently

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Many people find it hard to believe that such a simple exercise can bring such wonderful benefits. For some odd reasons, they believe that for an art to be effective, its practice as well as philosophy need to be complicated. This is not so. If you take a minute to reflect, you will find that many great and beautiful things in life, as well as in arts and science, are simple -- and profound, i.e. not complicated and not shallow. Clear your mind of all thoughts and listen to a raindrop, and you may hear the music of heaven. If you start to reason why the raindrop fall, the music will be lost. Or, for the less poetic, savour your food as you chew it, and you will find eating your daily meanls a pleasure. If you start thinking of how many calories you are taking in or what you have to tell your clients after lunch, you will find eating your meals a chore.

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Finding a good husband is a very important question any young unmarried woman should consider carefully. Being a happy wife and mother fulfills a deep biological as well as spiritual need. Unfortunately, judging from the number of unsuccessful marriages nowadays, young women have not done this effectively.

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Whether the standard aimed at can be attained depends much on what kind of standard you set yourself and how realistically you work towards it. If the standard is to live a rewarding, happy life, practicing our Shaolin Cosmos Chi Kung daily and following the Ten Shaolin Laws is a sure way to attain it. If you don't attain this standard, then either you have practiced wrongly or worse not at all, or you have not followed the Ten Shaolin Laws.

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Yim Wing Choon herself was famous for her kicks. Her favourite kick, which was often her combat-ending technique, was called "Kheun Lui Thuei", or "Inside-Skirt Kick", so called because the kick was executed inside her skirt. A local bully wanted to marry her, and brought his whole troop of bandits to her house to force marriage. Yim Wing Choon made a deal with him. If he won in a public fight, she would willingly become his wife, if he lose he would call her god-mother. In the combat, Yim Wing Choon tricked him to close in to attack, and in his unexpected moment, executed the "Inside-Skirt Kick" which broke his shin, with him not knowing where the kck came from. He kept his promise and frequently brought gifts to his god-mother, way after Yim Wing Choon married Leong Phok Khow, who learned Wing Choon Kungfu from his wife and taught it to Wong Wah Poh and Leong Yi Thai.

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All styles of kungfu, including Wing Choon (Wing Chun) as well as external styles, have built-in health benefits if they are practiced correctly. Strictly speaking, all styles of kungfu, even external styles, have chi kung in their training, though many of their practitioners may not know it.

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I believe Yang Lu Chan and his two sons, Yang Jian Hou and Yang Ban Hou, practiced Chen Style Tai Chi Chuan. Yang Jian Hou's son, Yang Deng Fu, initially practiced Chen Style too, but later he modified many of his Tai Chi Chuan patterns, especially making their movements slower and bigger.

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The Western Paradise is not in our Saha world. It is in another galaxy watched over by Anitabha Buddha, who is different from Shykamuni Buddha (or Guatama Buddha) of our world. There are no lower beings like ghosts, titans or animals in the Western Paradise. All the beings there are heavenly beings. There is no sorrow there; it is a world of eternal bliss.

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If you have been practicing low level Shaolin Kungfu or flowery fists and embroidery kicks, understanding the above points will enable you to change your lower level art to a middle level or even a high level one. You would have to stop those practices that bring you harm, like tensing your muscles in your solo training and hitting one another in your sparring, and substitute them with beneficial practices, like performing your kungfu movements in a relaxing manner and developing control in your sparring. You would also have to change your Karate, Kick-Boxing or other non-kungfu techniques to kungfu techniques in your sparring.

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Kungfu masters normally do not wish to talk about the principles and applications of their kungfu. If they ever talk about kungfu, they usually only show their outward forms without demonstrating how these forms can be used in combat. On the other hand, those who only practice external kungfu forms — and they are the great majority of kungfu practitioners today — would be unable to demonstrate their application or explain their underlying principles even if they wished. This is a main reason why today you can usually find only kungfu forms but not their applications or principles in the internet, videos and books. This is also a main reason why many kungfu practitioners turn to Karate and Kick-Boxing when they spar.

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Practicing chi kung will bring your martial art to levels that you may not have thought possible before. Not only you will be relaxed and mentally clear even in your sparring, you will not be panting for breaths or feel tired after practicing in solo or in combat for more than an hour. Translated into everyday life, it means you both work and play better and longer. If you have sustained internal injuries in your martial art training, the chi kung practice will clear the injuries, and then make you healthy physically and emotionally. This is an important aspect many martial artists neglect or are not aware of.

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The saying refers to practitioners who can perform the patterns and techniques beautifully but they have no force in their performance. In other words, theirs is “flowery fists embroidery kicks”, beautiful to watch but ineffective for combat. Usually such practitioners only know external kungfu forms. But even if they know the combat application of these forms, they are inadequate in combat because they lack “kung-lik” or force. This is a main reason why if they ever spar with exponents of Karate, Taekwondo, Kick-Boxers, Western Boxers or other martial arts, they will be badly beaten.

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